SEATTLE — Two passengers who were on board the Boeing plane that had a mid-air blowout after taking off from Portland in January tell KING 5 they no longer trust the company.
"I was thinking that we were going to die. I was thinking that the plane was going to crash,” said Shandy Brewer.
She said it was the scariest moment of her life.
"Then making eye contact with other passengers as well, like, I could see the fear in their face, I can see the worry in their face. Nobody knows what's going on," she recalled.
Brewer was headed to her grandmother’s 100th birthday party Jan. 5 when, at 16,000 feet, a door plug of the Boeing 737 MAX 9 jet operated by Alaska Airlines was ripped out of the plane.
Passengers and a flight attendant were injured as cabin pressure was suddenly lost.
Andrew Chhur was also on the flight. He was flying home to California after visiting a friend in Portland.
"Like, from the moment the door blew out and the oxygen masks came down, it was a very strong feeling of uncertainty," said Chhur.
In those frantic moments, Andrew started texting loved ones. He wrote, "If anything happens to me. I love you."
"In the case that these were my last words to my friends and family, I wanted to get that out there," he said. "I didn't want them to wonder about what my last thoughts were or what happened to me."
Brewer said she heard a "huge bang" before what looked like a white cloud went through the plane. She said it looked almost like a fire extinguisher had gone off.
"I was immediately like, what is going on?" she recalled.
Chhur was sitting in seat 8D.
Brewer and her father in seats 10 D and E. Those seats were more than 10 rows in front of the ripped out door plug. To them, it felt like it was just inches away.
"It was like a gunshot right in your ear, like, louder than a gunshot," Brewer said.
It’s been five months since the incident and for the first time these passengers are reacting to the Boeing troubles that have come to light since then.
"It's super scary. I don't want to fly on a Boeing plane at all," said Berwer.
Several whistleblowers have come forward with manufacturing and safety issues, including allegations that faulty parts are getting installed on planes. With their plane specifically, the NTSB found Boeing delivered the aircraft with four bolts missing.
"These small critical things like bolts in a door ... it's disheartening. Boeing is a bastian of the United States. To see where Boeing was and where it is now. Yeah, it's disheartening," said Chhur.
This week, a Senate committee grilled Boeing CEO Dave Calhoun about the company’s safety culture.
"In our factories and in our supply chain, we took immediate action to ensure the specific circumstances that led to this accident could never happen again," said Calhoun.
"Boeing executives have made public statements that are essentially confessions, but they have not yet formally accepted liability," said Seattle Attorney Mark Lindquist, who represents 31 passengers from Alaska Airlines flight 1282 including Brewer and Chhur.
They're suing Boeing and Alaska Airlines. The NTSB found that, before the door plug blowout, Alaska restricted the plane from flying over water. Alaska reported that a warning light had gone off three times indicating pressurization problems.
Both Chhur and Brewer said they have lasting trauma from this experience and they want to see an overhaul of production safety standards before they'll feel safe flying on a Boeing plane again.
"I don’t think anyone should ever be put in that same experience that I was on that plane. And for Boeing to come out and say it won't happen again, that's great, but I'll truly believe it when that doesn't happen again," said Chhur.